Conventional hand-pull golf carts, such as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,079,166, are useful for supporting a golf bag for ready movement over a golf course, while still providing for ready transport of the bag by collapsing the cart While conventional golf carts are useful, they normally contain accessory frame components, mounting the golf bag at both ends thereof despite the inherent structural rigidity of the golf bag and mounting the bag in such a way that access to all pockets in the bag is precluded by frame components. Additionally, conventional carts are sometimes not properly balanced, and the supporting and collapsing mechanisms are unnecessarily heavy.
There have been proposals in the patented literature for eliminating some of the cart supporting components by taking advantage of the inherent structural rigidity of the bag, such as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 2,628,801. However, such prior proposals have not been especially commercially successful, probably at least in part due to the inability to readily collapse the cart, the difficulty in attaching and removing the bag to and from the cart, and inability to properly position the pull-handle with respect to the bag to provide a minimum of pulling effort.
According to the present invention, a manual golf cart is provided having numerous advantages over conventional golf carts. A golf cart according to the present invention has a weight reduction of about 30 to 40% with respect to conventional carts due to elimination of some frame components and reliance on the bag's inherent structural rigidity, and due to a simplified folding mechanism; free access is provided to all the pouches of the bag; the bag is mounted at its handle so that the balance essential for easy pulling is automatically achieved; and the cart handle may be readily moved to any desired position for ease of pulling.
According to the present invention, a cart for mounting an elongated structurally rigid bag (having an opening at one end thereof, and a handle at one side thereof adjacent to the opening) is provided, the cart comprising a frame mechanism, means for attaching a pair of wheels to the frame mechanism, and means for mounting the frame mechanism to the bag by its handle, and for providing pivotal movement of the frame mechanism with respect to the bag mounted thereby. The mounting means consists essentially of structures engaging the bag disposed only between the bag handle and the opening, and preferably includes an insert having substantially the same exterior configuration as the interior configuration of the bag handle and having a pivot pin extending outwardly from the sides thereof for receipt by releasable clamping means mounted to the frame mechanism. The cart also includes a second frame mechanism which is rigidly attached to the bag between its handle and the bag opening, and means are provided for mounting the second frame mechanism for only pivotal movement about said pivot pin with respect to the first frame mechanism. A handle means is provided mounted for pivotal movement with respect to said second frame mechanism about an axis substantially parallel to said pivot pin, and the handle means is interconnected to the frame mechanism and to the wheels to effect pivotal movement of the frame mechanism about said pivot point with respect to said second frame mechanism, and to effect movement of said wheels toward and away from each other along a common axis of rotation.
Cable means are provided for operatively connecting the wheels to the handle means for effecting relative movement of the wheels toward and away from each other in response to movement of the handle means, and a latching mechanism may be provided to latch the wheels in a position adjacent each other so that they remain adjacent to each other despite relative movement of the frame mechanism with respect to the second frame mechanism in response to relative movement of the handle with respect thereto. The frame mechanism preferably comprises a metal yoke formed of tubing having a polygonal cross-sectional shape, and arcuate guide bars are attached to the second frame mechanism and are received by guide ways on the first frame mechanism for allowing relative guided movement therebetween.
It is the primary object of the present invention to provide an improved manual golf cart. This and other objects of the invention will become clear from an inspection of the detailed description of the invention, and from the appended claims.